Wingin' It: Bookenders

By JILL WING

Saturday, February 16, 2013

I go to the library every week. I'm not sure what I expect, but every time I go I have a new appreciation for this institution that may someday be an archaic, quaint repository of how we used to get information, be entertained and learn.

When Ray Bradbury wrote his futuristic novel "Fahrenheit 451" in 1953, he was imagining a future without books. That future seems to be now, or at least a prelude to it.

While Bradbury's novel dealt with book burning and censorship in a dictatorial world, current technology is moving toward the day that books are no longer relevant.

Ever since people started reading novels on their iPads, Kindles and Nooks, and doing research on Google and not at the library, I've had this irrational fear of shuttered bookstores and libraries. Of the futuristic library that will look like a wall of ATMs -- slide your library card in and it will load the book you've chosen to read on your "device." It's coming to that. Even regular books are checked out on a computer at the updated Saratoga Springs Public Library.

I wonder if I'd just stop reading if that was the only way to access books.

I have friends who love their devices and the convenience of shopping for books online and then reading them on the spot. Not for me. First, when you've finished reading the book, you don't have anything to show for it. The virtual book is like a vaporous Etch-a-Sketch -- it would evaporate on the bookshelf. And what about bookcases? I can't imagine a home without one.

There's something visceral about reading a book that no device could ever duplicate. A book is more than the text between the covers. Its thickness, the weight of its pages, the art on the covers, flipping pages ahead to see if you can finish the chapter you're reading before you drop off to sleep, and then putting the book down on the table knowing it'll be there when you're ready to continue.

And, it's about conversation. When I see books laying around someone's house or in their bookcase, I feel an instant kinship -- a comfortable commonality

Besides, I like the thrill of the chase. To browse a virtual bookstore on a computer defeats the whole purpose of bookstores and libraries. I never know what I'll walk out with when I walk in. Sometimes what I choose is the opposite of what I was looking for. Before I pick out a book, I have to hold it, read the inside cover flap for the book's synopsis, and rifle through the pages to see if it's normal size print, and to see how long the chapters are. If all those stars are aligned, I'll take it -- almost like picking a new friend to spend the next week with.

"I still love books. Nothing a computer can do can compare to a book. You can't really put a book on the Internet," Bradbury wrote. "Three companies have offered to put books by me on the Net, and I said, 'If you can make something that has a nice jacket, nice paper with that nice smell, then we'll talk.' All the computer can give you is a manuscript. People don't want to read manuscripts. They want to read books. Books smell good. They look good. You can press it to your bosom. You can carry it in your pocket."

Amen, brother.

Jill Wing is a copy editor at The Saratogian. Contact her at jwing @saratogian.com or call (518) 583-8735.